Star Wars: Episode III

Attila the Hub and I went to see The Revenge of the Sith today, and it was reasonably good. I was unable to figure out what they would have called it if they had stayed with The Revenge of the Jedi in the first trilogy. Would this then have to be entitled The Return of the Sith? You should be glad you aren't me, and don't have to think these thoughts.

It's impossible not to feel a bit wistful, wondering what it would be like to see one of the prequels—this one especially—without knowing ahead of time how they come out. Why, oh why didn't Lucas tell the story the right way around? Well, you know. He just didn't.

And there's a certain annoyance factor in listening to Wookies make that noise they make, and being asked to watch sword fights between Yoda and regular-size people. Well, well, well. At least some of us got over being short, and it's too bad George Lucas isn't one of them. Talk about your wish fulfillment scenes.

But that all goes with the territory: it is Star Wars, after all. I've been watching these movies most of my life. It's bound to wear a person down.

And then there is the political subtext injected into this part of the story with a big on-the-nose needle: "only a Sith would think in black and white." The lefty lines were obvious, and didn't go too well with the rest of the story.

Jason Apuzzo writes in Libertas, the excellent blog by the Liberty Film Festival people:

So what is Episode III? The film is the story of young Anakin Skywalker’s temptation to the Dark Side, and his transformation into the monstrous Darth Vader - the villain who loomed so darkly over the original Star Wars trilogy. Yes, there are other aspects to the film, as have been widely publicized. Yes, there is a kind of muddled liberalism that occasionally escapes the mouths of characters - particularly in important moments, such as the final confrontation between Vader and his one-time friend and mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Yes, Vader mouths lines in that moment that are clearly intended to echo President Bush’s “for us or against us� speech before Congress. But over the course of a 2hr. 20min. film - a film that still somehow feels rushed - these are annoying distractions rather than central components of the story. And I could not help but think as I watched them that these lines were planted precisely to provoke the faux-controversy that now engulfs the film - just another of Lucas’ marketing schemes, to go along with the Pez dispensers and inflatable chairs. [Buy this Wookie coffee mug and win a free on-line subscription to MoveOn.org!]

Revenge of the Sith lives or dies - and I believe lives - according to one central relationship in the story. Much as Return of the Jedi hinged on the fraught relationship between Luke Skywalker and his father, Sith revolves around the complex relationship between Anakin Skywalker and his mentor-cum-Mephistophelean tempter, Chancellor Palpatine. The best moments in the film - and by far the best moments in the entire prequel trilogy - come in the quiet, private moments between these two characters, as Palpatine weaves a complex web to ensnare his young charge. Critics have been right to praise Ian McDiarmid for his performance - Lucas and Hayden Christensen should also be praised for what they bring to this aspect of the drama. Much like Luke in The Empire Strikes Back, Anakin suffers from premonitions of harm to others. In Empire Luke fears for the lives of Leia and Han, tortured by Luke’s father in Cloud City. Luke’s fears lead him into a trap. In Sith, Anakin has nightmarish premonitions of his wife Padme’s death in childbirth. He shares these fears with Palpatine, who then tempts Anakin with promises of power over life and death - if only Anakin will succumb to the Dark Side, where such “unnatural� powers can be explored. Palpatine’s seduction is pure Garden of Eden stuff - tempting the young innocent with the ‘knowledge’ of good and evil.

I also found that central relationship interesting. It attempts to answer the question we've been asking since the first Star Wars trilogy: how does a good man turn to evil? And what else does it change about him? How, essentially, does this transformation occur? Some people find it impossible to believe that an impulse as good as wanting to save the life of a loved one could lead to a process of corruption so total, it drives a man mad with power. The film isn't without its flaws, but I do buy that central thesis: we can be corrupted by the decisions we make. I keep remembering a line from one of the Agatha Christie mysteries wherein Hercule Poirot proclaims, "we all know the effect of a murder on the victim. What interests me is the effect on the murderer." And all the best crime writers discuss this issue of moral decay: How a person could get there from here.

That's it. Our choices shape the world around us, but they also shape us. Perhaps not so quickly and dramatically as when Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader, but in other ways. And in real life it usually takes longer. I kept remembering, as I watched this story, about the corruption of Benedict Arnold: his marriage to a loyalist woman, his participation in loyalist society. Life's real seductions take months and years, unlike the speedier ones of a sexual nature. But it does appear to go quickly: next thing you know, you're asking George Washington for command of West Point with the intent of turning it over to the British.

Episode III accomplishes what it needs to. As my husband points out, watching it in the abstract would be rather like seeing The Two Towers on its own: vaguely unsatisfactory. As it is, we're seeing the last piece of a puzzle fall into place.

I kept expecting Obi-Wan to die, and remembering that of course he does not: he needs to stay alive, so he can become the Alec Guinness of my adolescence. The whole telling-a-story-inside-out approach is profoundly odd.

But the movie is visually compelling, and Jar-Jar Binks doesn't utter a word. So I'd call it a worthwhile way to spend the afternoon.

Someday I'd like to see them all, chronologically, within the same weekend—and really get a sense of how well the entire story fits together. Then I'd never have to watch any of them ever again: I'd be done.